A Summary of Illinois News

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - In a state where the government plans to spend $59 billion this year, it's not a lot of money. But taxpayers can expect to cough up at least $80,000 for this week's special legislative session.

Lawmakers will return to Springfield Wednesday and Thursday at the beck of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who says they sent him a fiscal blueprint in which expenditures exceed revenues by $2 billion.

Like anyone on business, Illinois' 118 representatives and 59 senators are entitled to reimbursement for their expenses.

It's $129 per day for lodging and meals, for a total of $45,400.

And for hopping in the car and crossing the flat prairie to the capital, each gets 50.5 cents per mile. They'll drive 60,260 miles and get $30,400 in taxpayer reimbursements, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.

Last year, when the General Assembly was in session after its May 31 adjournment deadline, Blagojevich often flew to Springfield and home to Chicago each night, at a cost of nearly $6,000.

State-owned aircraft operation and lodging for staff members likely will put the total over $80,000.

That's a fraction of the overall budget cost, which was supposed to take effect with the state's new fiscal year July 1. The bigger cost might be the emotional toll taken on those under the Capitol dome after last summer's budget standoff between Blagojevich and House Democrats, which is shaping up to be a rerun.

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CHICAGO (AP) -- A man who allegedly bought a puffer fish toxin 1,200 times deadlier than cyanide while posing as a research doctor said after his arrest that he contemplated using it to poison himself, an FBI agent testified Monday.

FBI agent Mark Mahoney also testified that Edward F. Bachner IV, 35, said a woman whose murder he had been accused of soliciting in exchange for $8,000 and an AK-47 assault rifle was his wife.

The testimony came at a hearing in federal court in Rockford where Magistrate Judge P. Michael Mahoney ordered Bachner, of suburban Lake in the Hills, held without bond.

Mahoney ruled that Bachner was a danger to the community, as well as a flight risk to avoid prosecution and a potential prison sentence.

Bachner was named as the beneficiary of a $5 million life insurance policy on his wife, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Karner said.

But Bachner's attorney, James Marcus, questioned whether a plot to kill Bachner's wife existed. Rebecca Bachner attended Monday's court proceedings.

"More telling on that point is the fact that his wife was never notified of the alleged assassination plot," Marcus said.

While the agent quoted Bachner as saying he thought about using the poison on himself, there was no testimony at the hearing concerning why he would want to take his own life.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Karner told the judge that 25 one milligram vials containing the toxin were recovered from the trunk of Bachner's car. Twenty empty vials with toxin residue were found elsewhere in the vehicle, he said.

That left 19 of the 64 vials prosecutors believe Bachner had at one time still unaccounted for, Karner said.

A status hearing in the case was set for July 29 in Rockford.

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